Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Importing

An alternative to linking is to import an external style sheet into a document using the @import function in the style element:

    <style type="text/css">
    <!--@import url(http://pathname/stylesheet.css);
          p {font-face: Verdana;}
    -->
    </style>

In this example, an absolute URL is provided, but a relative URL may also be used. @import commands must come before anything else (except @charset).

Alternate Style Sheets

CSS 2 introduced the ability to specify alternate style sheets by setting the value of the rel attribute to alternate stylesheet, as shown in the following example.

    <linkrel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
        href="/pathname/basic.css" title="Basic Style" />
    <link rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css"
        href="/pathname/largetype.css" title="Larger type" />
    <link rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css"
        href="/pathname/minimal.css" title="Minimal Design" />

When the document in the above example loads into the browser, the basic.css style sheet is applied by default because it is the one specified as stylesheet. Browsers that support alternate style sheets would create a drop-down menu in the browser interface where users can select the other style options by title.

Alternate style sheets are supported in Mozilla, Netscape 6+, and Opera 7+. Internet Explorer Versions 6 and earlier do not support alternate style sheets except through an optional extension called a favelet (see http://www.favelets.com for more info). IE7 (in beta as of this writing) does not have built-in support ...